


heaven, to keep its beauty

by glorious_spoon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-11
Updated: 2011-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-18 08:26:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean talks to angels. Sam reads Dante and eavesdrops. Nothing is really resolved. Spoilers through 6.07</p>
            </blockquote>





	heaven, to keep its beauty

Dean is out on the front step with a beer.

Sam could join him, could get his own beer out of the mini-fridge and sit down on the step, maybe strike up a conversation. Bitch about Samuel, insult Crowley, ask after Lisa, even. He could. Dean wouldn't hit him again, he's almost positive. He could go outside where the air is sweet and cold and the leaves crunch underfoot, watch the cars go by on the highway and pretend, for a little while, to be normal.

But it would all be a lie, and now Dean knows that.

He looks down. The pages of the book are dry, thin and smooth against his fingertips. Bobby has a translation, but Sam speaks Latin well enough to understand most of the Italian with the assistance of a dictionary, and it's always better to read texts in the original. It's easy to miss things otherwise.

It's easy to miss a lot of things.

He's turning a page when his hand twitches toward the gun lying next to him, and as always, it takes his mind a second to catch up with his instincts. Crowley, he thinks, come to gloat, but the room is empty.

There's a cool breath of air, and the lamp flickers. On the other side of the window, Dean is rising slowly to his feet, but his posture is loose and unafraid. Sam doesn't let go of the gun as he slides out of his seat and drifts toward the window. It's cracked open, just a little. Not enough for Dean to notice.

It's not that he doesn't trust Dean. It's just that he functions better when he has all the information.

Dean is talking.

"--didn't find anything, what the hell are you doing here?"

"I came to talk to you, Dean." That's Castiel. Sam lets the tension drain out of him, tucking his gun away, but he doesn't move away from the window. Dean's facing away from him, and if Castiel can see him, he gives no sign of it. His hair is mussed, and the streetlamp over his head carves his face into a sculpture of light and shadow.

"We don't have anything to talk about," Dean snaps.

"Yes, we do."

"Yeah? Like what? Like how you left me in the dark for a whole goddamn year about Sam? Like how there's some kind of celestial war going on and Crowley's got us by the balls? Things like that?"

"I wanted to come to you." Castiel tilts his head, brow furrowed, and sighs. "Things were...complicated."

"It's always freaking complicated with you," Dean mutters. "I don't even know why I bother."

"You haven't."

"Cas," Dean says in a measured voice. Sam can recognize the cadence of it, slow and frustrated, the kind of tone that would have Dean pinching the bridge of his nose and looking heavenward, although that's probably superfluous when it's an angel you're talking to. "I have a demon riding my ass with his spurs in and a brother with no soul. I'm not really in the mood for puzzles right now."

"You haven't bothered," Castiel says. "Dean--" and his hand is coming up, a slow cautious motion through the night air. Dean catches it before it can make contact, but it's not a violent gesture. He shakes his head, and when he speaks it's quiet and soft.

"I can't do this with you, Cas. Not now, okay?"

"I understand." Castiel is looking at Dean the way he always does, like Dean's the only thing that exists. It used to be so irritating. Sam can almost remember that. Jealousy, he thinks. He was jealous. It's a funny thought.

"Do you?" Dean asks, still quiet. "Do you understand? 'Cause most of the time, I don't even think I know you anymore."

"I'm still me," Castiel says. He leans forward, and it's slow enough that Dean could move away if he wanted to.

Dean doesn't move away. When Castiel kisses him on the mouth, he makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, hands curling into the angel's sleeves, arrested in the motion of pulling him closer or pushing him away--it's hard to tell which.

Then Castiel is gone. There's a lingering taste of lightening in the air, and Dean stands still, eyes closed, alone.

Sam stands and watches as he scrubs a hand over his face, as he takes a long swallow from his beer and sinks back down onto the step, shoulders slumped. His face is like a maze, and Sam studies it for several long moments. He can remember a time when he could read Dean like an open book, but things were different then.

After a while, he turns away from his brother, back to the lamplit room and the slow certainty of old poetry, ink and paper and no troublesome emotions to consider.

It's simpler this way.


End file.
